


Raging Flames

by aravenwood



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo '19-20 [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Community: hc_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Pre-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 02:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19861741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: Fire was always one of the few things Crowley loved about Hell and so he jumps at the chance to light the fireplace in Aziraphale's bookshop. There's only one problem with that - Aziraphale is terrified of fire.





	Raging Flames

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly think that Good Omens is one of my favourite TV shows of all times and the time was always going to come when the fics begin. And what better way to get into it than with H/C bingo? 
> 
> Enjoy!

In the back room of A.Z Fell & Co., there was a great stone fireplace which had never been lit. Aziraphale had always rather enjoyed the idea of curling up in his favourite chair with a blanket over his knees, a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a book in the other, and a fire raging over the coals. It was what the humans described as homely and he would have loved nothing more than to indulge himself in this simple way. There was one problem however – he was terrified of the flames.

He didn’t consider it to be unusual for an angel to be afraid of fire, because after all the most effective way of killing an angel on a permanent basis was to use hellfire and there was no real way to decipher between these flames and the ones which would come from his fireplace. And after all, this was a bookshop and one wrong slip could have his home and all of his greatest treasures destroyed. He couldn’t even begin to imagine moving on from such an atrocity – he wasn’t sure that he could.

But Crowley loved fire. Not in a “I’m going to watch the whole world go up in smoke because I’m a demon and I want to make people suffer” kind of way – it was more that it reminded him of Hell, and while he wasn’t a fan of the place on the whole he did miss the aesthetic. Seeing the fireplace in Aziraphale’s bookshop always gave him a strange feeling in his stomach, as though he’d been lightly stabbed and the blade had changed to feathers. It wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed, but he was sure that it meant something.

On this particular night, it was storming outside. The weather forecast had promised clear skies for much of the day and only a few clouds late in the evening, and Crowley was rather proud of himself for that little bit of deceit. He’d watched streams of people in shorts and t-shirts hurry down the street as the rain began, taking increasingly ridiculous measures in an attempt to keep their heads dry – his favourite had been the man with the newspaper stuck to his head, the sodden pages leaking black ink down his cheeks like blood from a demon. Aziraphale wasn’t nearly as impressed, but admitted that he enjoyed the way the air felt right after a storm and had made no attempts to fix things.

Crowley took that as a win.

Not long into the storm, the dull light of the shop flickered out and left them in total darkness except for a quick flash of lightning from outside. Aziraphale squeaked in fright, his body twitching so violently that one of his hands knocked against Crowley’s chest – the contact led to another squeak, this one shorter but more afraid. “Oh dear!” he yelped and stumbled away.

“Easy, Angel. Only a power cut,” Crowley drawled, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Aziraphale yank open a drawer and paw through the piles of rubbish he had accumulated over the last hundred years.

“I have a – torch around here somewhere,” the angel called over his shoulder.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What do you need one of those for?”

“To see, dear.”

One of the perks of being a demon and spending so long in the dark pits of hell was that he had no problem seeing in the dark. One of the downfalls to being an angel was that there was no such ease. While Crowley could make out almost every detail in the room, Aziraphale was well and truly blind.

This was a fact that Crowley often forgot. “Oh right. Well, easily fixed.”

He snapped his fingers and the coals within the fireplace burst into flames. Orange light filled the room, touching every corner so there was not a single inch of the darkness Aziraphale so badly struggled in. He let out a soft sigh and smiled, tossing his head back and basking in the steady heat of the fire as it filled the room. The twisting sensation in his stomach seemed to burst to a feeling he knew – joy. His entire being was filled with complete and utter bliss in a way it so rarely was these days.

It was the quiet, fearful whimper from the other side of the room which pulled him from the hellish bliss. He furrowed his brows above his sunglasses and let out a tiny groan – what was wrong now? The darkness was gone, what could be frightening Aziraphale now?

The angel had his back pressed against the wall, arms curled over his head and eyes squeezed tight shut. Even from across the room Crowley could make out the pitiful whimpers and frantic breaths, just as he could make out every tremor which wracked Aziraphale’s frame. “Stop, stop, please make it stop,” the angel whispered as he slid down the wall to the floor, knees tucked against his chest and his face buried in his thighs. His wings, so rarely on show these days, glowed faintly above him, so big against the tiny ball that was Aziraphale.

“Angel?” Crowley called softly, “what’s wrong?”

Aziraphale let out a quiet sob and curled his wings around his body, hiding himself almost entirely from view. The whispers of “stop, stop,” continued, never getting louder or stronger or any less desperate. He was, and Crowley was going to put this nicely, a wreck.

Despite what he’d been told time after time by angels who disapproved of his life on Earth, Aziraphale was not a coward. He didn’t run from a fight, not when there were human lives at stake, and he’d even protected Crowley once or twice when the situation called from it. He wasn’t the archetypal model of bravery, but it took a lot to bring him to his knees – literally, in this case. Crowley couldn’t think of a single time he’d seen the angel break down like this.

But once in Hell, he’d seen another angel do it. Right before they were tossed into hellfire.

“Shit!” Crowley snapped his fingers and the fire was gone, the room plunged into darkness once more. He hurried to the drawer Aziraphale had been searching, but unlike Aziraphale who had been at least a little careful, he pulled the entire thing out and emptied it onto the floor. A metallic clink rang above every other little thump, and he quickly located the torch the angel had been looking for. Pushing the switch up with his thumb, he aimed the beam at Aziraphale’s hunched figure and rushed to his side.

The angel’s wings were gone, a sign that Aziraphale was feeling safer. But he remained curled up and quivering, even flinching when Crowley rested a hand on his knees. “No, stop,” he mumbled and tried to wriggle away.

Crowley cursed again. “Angel – Aziraphale! The flames are gone, I put them out again. No hellfire, no one is going to burn you up,” he called, hands going from Aziraphale’s knees to his shoulders to squeezing his hands into the hunched figure and cupping his cheeks. He lifted Aziraphale’s head up, wincing at the tear-stained face and terrified expression. Fingers stroking the angel’s cheeks, he lowered his voice and said, “it’s gone, I promise. You’re safe, I’m here and you’re safe.”

Aziraphale stirred, eyelids fluttering for a moment before frightened blue eyes appeared. “Crowley,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, I – I don’t know what happened.” His cheeks flushed and he shifted as though to stand, but changed his mind and instead leaned his head against Crowley’s chest.

“It’s fine,” Crowley said and curled his arms around Aziraphale, resting his chin atop the angel’s head. “It’s fine, you can be afraid of it, no one would blame you. But you’re safe with me. No hellfire for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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